PBS recently premiered a new episode of its American Masters biography series during Black History Month—American Masters: The Disappearance of Miss Scott. As the title hints, for many viewers this was a long-overdue reintroduction or even a first introduction to its brilliant subject: Hazel Scott, the jazz prodigy, virtuoso pianist, and pioneering civil rights activist-entertainer who appeared on Broadway, headlined sold-out concerts, soloed with symphony orchestras, starred in Hollywood films, broke recording sales records, and became the first African American to host her own television series—all by the time she turned 30—before the McCarthy-era Red Scare blacklist destroyed her reputation at the height of her career. She spent ten years living abroad and came home to a nation whose popular musical tastes had changed. But this new documentary is a fresh dose of proper recognition for a supremely talented and principled artist who at her core was a symphonic creator.

In her case, this description is literal. Symphonic Strategies often fuses symphonies and jazz as metaphors in our work; Hazel Scott fused them in reality. Her classical training was the foundation of her musical genius. Born in Trinidad and Tobago and raised in Harlem, she was a childhood prodigy who earned a scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School at age eight—eight years younger than their standard admissions cutoff—where she trained in classical piano. But instead of confining herself to one genre, Scott masterfully blended classical techniques with jazz and swing, forging a distinctive musical identity. At a time when classical and jazz musicians often performed in separate spaces, she bridged a gap. She broke racial barriers in the classical music world as she performed with leading orchestras and in concert halls where Black musicians were rarely seen, and she broke musical barriers as she reinterpreted classical pieces, adding swing and improvisation to works by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Bach—an approach that thrilled audiences even when it unsettled traditionalists, fully showcasing her genius as both a classical technician and a jazz innovator. Music writer Marcus J. Moore described her creativity this way to PBS:

“She’d start the composition by playing a classical piece, then would add jazz-centric runs to the songs, landing on music that didn’t land squarely on either genre. Take ‘Waltzes, Op.64: II: Tempo giusto in C Sharp Minor’ as an example: Scott opens the song with melancholic chords, filling the air with sophisticated calm. Then the drums kick in, and with a quickened pace, Scott makes the track modern, skipping through mid and upper registers with the utmost dexterity. It still sounds like a classical tune, but a lot more fun. It reminds me of what you see on social media every so often, where someone posts an old Thelonious Monk piano solo and chops it to show how the rap beatmaker RZA sampled it. Except Scott was sampling classical in real time, and long before sampling was a thing anyone knew about. She also predates someone like Jon Batiste, the award-winning pianist, whose recent album Beethoven Blues mixed Ludwig van Beethoven’s work into blues-driven compositions rooted in his Louisiana upbringing, while also taking rap and R&B into account. Scott didn’t have the luxury of pulling from such genres. She had to create a new canvas on which others could paint later.”

Hazel Scott’s symphonic leadership skills extended well beyond music. She was an advocate for racial and social justice before the larger Civil Rights Movement, using her platform as she rose to fame in the 1940s to challenge discrimination. She famously refused to perform for segregated audiences; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said attending one of her concerts was his first experience in an integrated theater. She sued a Washington state restaurant that would not serve her, helping spur new legislation outlawing discrimination in public accommodations in the state. When she was recruited to Hollywood she demanded the same pay as White actors and refused to play any subservient roles. In the film The Heat’s On, she played piano in a scene portraying Black soldiers about to deploy to war, but when she saw that the Black women playing their girlfriends and wives were given stained work clothes as costumes she was outraged by the incorrect suggestion that they would ‘see their sweethearts off to war wearing dirty Hoover aprons’—and she led them on a strike for three days until their wardrobes were changed. Soon after she was blacklisted from the movie studios. But the bigger backlash against her from the rest of the industry was still to come.

The Hazel Scott Show, her 1950 nationally syndicated television program, was an entertainment milestone, but her ongoing outspoken activism helped make her a target for Senator McCarthy. The glare of that witch hunt reached its public peak when she insisted on appearing in person to testify and defend herself before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Within weeks her show was canceled, followed by the concert bookings and tours. She spent most of the late 1950s and 1960s living and performing in Paris, and even after she returned she never again enjoyed the same levels of crowds or commercial success in the United States. But she also never lost the conviction that she had done what she knew was right. “I’ve been brash all my life,” she said, “and it’s gotten me into a whole lot of trouble. But at the same time, speaking out has sustained me and given meaning to my life.”

And so her influence endures. She paved the way for later generations of Black musicians, proving a woman of color could lead on the concert stage. Her fearless blending of classical and jazz and insistence on artistic freedom reshaped the musical landscape. And her activism is a critical example right now. Moore put it this way: “Scott was a woman—a Black woman—doing things the world hadn’t seen, fighting for equality that others didn’t want, revolutionizing music that some didn’t want to evolve. It’s tough to be outspoken now let alone then, but history is kind to the risk takers who never fully smelled the flowers when they were alive, who weren’t afraid of disrupting a system that was never going to embrace them. That we’re talking about Scott today further solidifies her genius.” As cultural institutions continue to reckon with issues of diversity and representation in another treacherous political moment, her legacy serves as a powerful reminder that boundaries—musical, racial, or otherwise—are meant to be broken. Hazel Scott was more than a supernaturally gifted performer; she was a leader, a visionary, and a symphonic force for change.